


Fancy A Cuppa?

by doctorxdonna (badxwolfxrising)



Series: Earth Girls Are So Not Easy [11]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-07
Updated: 2015-03-07
Packaged: 2018-03-16 16:43:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3495533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badxwolfxrising/pseuds/doctorxdonna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor has lost so much, he seeks comfort by visiting an old friend. But naturally, since it's the Doctor, things don't go as planned. A bit of an 11/Donna whump, set sometime after The Angels Take Manhattan, but before the Bells of Saint John (for the Doctor; for Donna, it's only been a few weeks since 10 wiped her memory and dropped her off).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fancy A Cuppa?

The Doctor knew what he was doing was a really bad idea, he just couldn’t bring himself to care. 

In the wake of losing Amy and Rory, he was feeling selfish, reckless, angry and afraid. It was a dangerous cocktail of emotions that had lead him to land the TARDIS in 2009, in someone’s back garden in Chiswick. So completely stupid, and he just couldn’t be buggered to care. He almost hoped he crossed his own timeline, so he could rage at pinstripes and plimsolls for not protecting her better, not keeping her safe. How different things might have gone if Donna had never left him. If Donna had never left him, he never would’ve picked up Wilf in a pathetic attempt to assuage the guilt he felt over what he had done to her. He might never have regenerated. If he really wanted to, he could squint and get a vague impression of what, actually, this would’ve been like. If Donna hadn’t left, if he hadn’t changed, if there had been no crashing in Amelia Pond’s back garden, or cracks in the universe, or humany wumany people to love and lose… All those thoughts and more were running through his head when a familiar voice interrupted his self-pitying reverie.

“Oi mate, you want to take a picture? It’ll last longer,” Donna Noble said, hands on her hips and her jaw squared.

“Ummm,” the Doctor replied, not sure if he was meant to answer that question truthfully or not. He had pictures of Donna, holocubes and data snaps and other such things. On the nights when he felt like a true masochist, he would go into the library with the holocubes and relive all his happy moments with them. His companions. He would spend an especially long time lingering over the photos from the time Rose and him went to that interstellar ice cream production plant. They had broken into one of the coolers to taste all the different ice creams, and hadn’t even made a dent when they had been caught and unceremoniously thrown out. He remembered how her mouth had tasted when he’d kissed her that night, sweet and cold.

He’d never gotten to kiss Donna, though he’d often wanted to. He thought her mouth would be warm, and sweet, like her. He had told her he just wanted a mate when they first started travelling together, and it had been true enough at the time. But then the longer they stayed together, the more he saw the goodness in her, the warmth and light, the quiet brilliance that had been almost beaten down and stamped out by her soulless wench of a mother, and then one day he realized that what he felt in his hearts for Donna Noble was quite a bit more serious than ‘just mates’. Unfortunately, he’d come to this realization when it was already too late, although he hadn’t known it at the time. It was after the Library and before Midnight that he had almost screwed up the courage to tell her, thinking that he didn’t want another repeat of Rose, a lost opportunity, a moment missed. Because at the end of the day, while the Doctor could steel himself into running from volcanoes, sneaking onto Sontaran ships, diffusing bombs, and whatever other kinds of physical peril he landed in on a regular basis, he was too much of a coward to risk exposing his heart to someone who very obviously cared about him. And then he’d lost her, just like he lost everything and everyone.

He realized he was still gaping at her, mouth opening and closing like a goldfish, when she spoke again.

“Right, well, your mother should’ve told you it’s very rude to stare,” she huffed, stalking away from the park bench where he was sitting. She had been sitting across the way on the opposite bench, reading a book. He had taken a seat, just to watch her. His intention had never been to do anything more than that. He just missed those blue eyes, her fiery red hair, that gentle smile of hers. Truthfully, he also missed the feel of her hand in his when they would run, or just in general. She’d had soft hands. He’d often wondered if the skin she kept hidden were that soft and smooth, too. It occurred to him he probably ought to stop thinking about it right here, right now as the blush crept up his collar. She had already turned her back and was walking away when he found his voice and spoke, surprising even himself.

“Wait! Please? You’ll have to excuse me, I’m just a bit shy and awkward. I saw you across the way, reading that Melody Malone mystery. It’s one of my favorites, actually. I was just trying to drum up the courage to come say something to you when you beat me to. I’m really sorry for staring, you’re just so lovely I just couldn’t help myself,” he said, scratching the back of his neck nervously. And then, unthinkably, “Fancy a cuppa? I know a great place nearby we could go and have a coffee.”

Donna stared at him, taken aback, and then began to blush furiously. “Fuck you. That ain’t even nice to joke about. Look at me, I mean really...look at me. You think I don’t have it hard enough as it is? What did I do to you, that you feel the need to put me on and try to embarrass me?” she whispered furiously, with something that looked dismayingly like a tear slipping from the corner of her eye.

Before the Doctor could close his open mouth and even think about formulating a response, Donna had spun on her heel. He was left to stand there, wondering how yet again he could manage to make a situation go so quickly awry, merely by opening his mouth.

* * * * *

Now he was really playing with fire. He knew he was dangerously close to running into his previous self if he kept this up, but his last botched conversation with Donna was haunting him. He couldn’t leave it like that. Not with her. He had waited until a few days later to come back and try again. Obscenely, he wished River were with him. She would understand. She would be able to give him advice on how to smooth it out. And then she might also propose a threesome, but hey, her heart was usually in the right place. Or the left, rather. River didn’t have a right-side heart.

Being left to his own devices, all he could do was straighten his bow tie and hope for the best.

“Hello again!” he said with feigned cheerfulness, sitting down next to her on the park bench.

“Oh, it’s you again,” Donna said, rolling her eyes and reaching for her coat. “Round one wasn’t enough, you had to come back for more?”

“It’s not like that, I promise. Listen, I just really wanted to take you for a cup of coffee. Talk. Get to know each other. That’s all, honestly,” he said in earnest.

“Sod off, I’m trying to read here,” she replied brusquely.

“Why do you think I’m putting you on? Donna, just go get a damn coffee with me!” he said, realizing his mistake as soon as the words had left his mouth.

“How’d you know my name?” she said, putting her book down to regard him with a mixture of fear and confusion.

“Ahhh, I overheard you answer your mobile earlier,” he said hastily.

“So you were eavesdropping on my phone conversation?” she asked, her tone going icy.

“Umm well, not as such, no. I just happened to be behind you in the bushes when you answered your phone,” he replied, biting the inside of his cheek. Like that was any better!

She was staring at him now, clutching her mobile in her hand. “You’re going to walk away and leave me alone now, and in return, I won’t call the police and pepper spray you.”

“In that order?” he couldn’t help but ask. She was flipping her phone open now, and before he really thought about it he had taken her by the wrist, flipped her phone shut, and was pressing his lips against her own. It was everything and nothing like he thought it would be-her mouth was soft, warm, and tasted faintly of Earl Grey and lemon curd. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it was perfectly Donna-comforting, and a bit tart. Still, he was just kissing her, she wasn’t kissing back, and when he pulled back from her and saw the dazed expression in her eyes, he knew he’d crossed a line.

“Who are you?” she asked, although there was something not quite like recognition in her eye.

“I’m no one at all,” he said, and now it was his turn to be the self-deprecating one. He placed his thumb on her cheek to wipe away the tear there, and then he placed his fingers on her temples. She collapsed against him, and he gently let her to rest on the park bench before getting up and beginning to walk away.

“Hey! That lady over there just fainted, someone call an ambulance!” he shouted as he ran away. He couldn’t bear to turn and look back, and when he felt his cheeks grow wet, he just chalked that up to the fact that he was running _really_ fast and it was quite windy that day. He ducked down an alleyway, and was heading back towards the TARDIS when he nearly slammed into the other man.

“Hey! Watch where you’re going,” the pinstriped Doctor said crossly, giving him a reproachful look. Before the other man could walk off, he grabbed him by the elbow and began to speak.

“You’ve got to do something. Something for Donna. You can’t let her forget us,” he breathed heavily. Before the other man could speak and a paradox could insinuate itself, he let go and began to run again. He didn’t turn to look and see if the other Doctor was following him or not. He didn’t care. He might have just changed the course of history...and he didn’t care about that, either. 

He just wished Donna would have kissed him back.


End file.
